Children of the Shadows: A Night's Tale
by Kara
Summary: Part of


A Night's Tale  
By Kara  
  
Rating: G  
Spoilers: None/Pre-series  
Disclaimer: None of this is actually mine, I'm just pretending.  
Summary: Part of the "Children of the Shadows" series-Jondy, Max, and Tinga tell each other bedtime stories to help them sleep.  
A/N: For Emily, partner in Roswell Elementary crime  
  
Manticore, 2008  
  
The Manticore nighttime routine was never the same. Sometimes, after dinner, the X-5s would march down to the classroom for a tactics lecture. Sometimes, there wasn't any dinner, and they'd have to take a midnight run through the forest or the training ground. Once, the Colonel even split them up in twos, and whoever found their way back to the barracks first blindfolded got to run the morning exercises the next day. But the nights Tinga liked best were the ones that meant only showers and the barracks after dinner. Those nights usually meant an extra-hard training session tomorrow, but the night before was always quiet. It was nights like those when Tinga knew she could be safe in her own cot, nights when no guards would yell at her for not staying asleep after the lights went out and the barracks door was shut. It was a night when Ben would tell stories, and they could pretend that they didn't live in this cold, awful place--nights when Tinga could be alone with her brothers and sisters and not have to worry. Family nights.  
  
As soon as the lights turned out, Tinga heard the soft sounds of blankets being pushed back. It was the only time at Manticore when her brothers and sisters were almost free, and they all knew it. The guards never really cared what they did on nights like this, as long as they stayed in the barracks. And they weren't ever really loud. That went against their training.  
  
Bare feet padded against the floor from the bed next to hers. Krit was going talk to Zane, probably. Springs squeaked as Max leapt from her cot to Jondy's next door. From the flickers on the ceiling, Ben was using the light from the window to make shadow puppets of the animals they'd seen in the woods on the recon mission yesterday. And Tinga knew by the thrashing coming from Zack's cot that her biggest brother was bothered by something--maybe even by the training session today, and how they'd all screamed when the nomaly down in the basement grabbed Eva.   
  
Ben told them stories about the nomalies sometimes, about how they were the bad soldiers that didn't obey their orders and were taken off in the night to become monsters. Those stories still made Syl cry at night, even though they never told the guards or the doctors or Colonel Lydecker. If any of them told, the adults might take Syl away, just like they took away Jen, when Jen started shaking so bad that she swallowed her tongue…  
  
Tinga threw off the covers, tired of lying in bed. She wasn't nocturnal, like Jondy and Max, but there were some nights when she couldn't sleep. It wasn't like she was afraid, but sometimes she just worried at night. She didn't like how the guards looked at her, and how the doctors always talked to each other as if she couldn't understand. But what she hated the most was when the Colonel was in a mood, and all he could do was yell and scream at them, how they were defying orders. That was when arms got broken, and when the torture started. After the last time, all Max could do was repeat her barcode number for two days. That was when the Colonel tried to see how much they could take before they started to cry. But Tinga never cried in front of the Colonel. She didn't want to give him that satisfaction.  
  
"He'll have a white horse." Tinga could hear Jondy's light voice as she moved closer to where her two little sisters huddled under Jondy's blankets. "And he'll ride up through the fence like the fence wasn't even there…"  
  
"A helicopter!" Max's lower voice giggled. It was a funny sound, a nighttime sound. They weren't allowed to laugh during the day. No smiles either. Those were the rules--never let anyone but your brothers and sisters see you smile or laugh. The Colonel didn't want them to enjoy life. They were soldiers.  
  
"A white horse," Jondy repeated firmly. Even in the dark, Tinga could see that Jondy's big eyes sparkled in ways that they never did during the day. "Ben says that princes always ride on white horses."  
  
"Since when has Ben seen a horse?" Max scoffed.  
  
"I saw a horse once. It was up in the mountains past the fence line when we were hunting the prisoner." Jondy's voice trailed off. "It kinda looked at me, and then it ran off far over the peak. But it wasn't white. It was red."  
  
Max shook her head. "I don't care what color the horse is. Just as long as he comes…"   
  
Tinga paused in the shadows as Jondy wrapped her arms around Max. They all worried about Max, especially since her shakes were getting worse and worse. Not as bad as Jack's got, and not as bad as Jen's…  
  
It was kinda funny, how different they were between daytime and nighttime. In the classroom and in the mess hall, there was always silence, like her brothers and sisters didn't want to give anything away. During daylight, they were numbers and only numbers, moving as a single unit. They watched, and they listened, and they followed orders. Sometimes, they solved things in ways that seemed to surprise the Colonel. Sometimes, he almost looked like he would smile too. But the most they ever got out of the Colonel was a pat on the back, and a "Well done, kids."  
  
Sometimes Tinga thought that it wasn't supposed to be this way. Sometimes she wanted to run and shout and try and wrestle Zack to the ground, just like Krit and Zane did after lights out. She knew they had to be good soldiers, and that good soldiers never let their emotions or what the Colonel called phony sentimentality get the better of them. Their first duty was to their objective, their second duty to their commanding officer, and their third duty to their unit. None of the duties ever mentioned laughing, or talking, or just sitting together and comforting like Max and Jondy were doing.  
  
"There's room for one more, Tinga." Jondy's voice was soft. Jondy was one of the babies, like Krit and Max and Syl. She wasn't one that the Colonel liked to single out, like he did with Max and Zack and Brin, because he said that Jondy took reckless chances sometimes. She wouldn't listen completely, the way Jace and Brin would. But Jondy was stubborn, and even if she wasn't as obedient to orders, she always did what she had to do. And she always protected Max.  
  
Sinking down at the foot of the narrow cot, Tinga wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees. Max and Jondy perched on the pillow, arms wound about each other. If Tinga knew how to laugh, she might have at the sight of their tiny bodies trying to comfort each other, old looks in their eyes. Maxie's eyes weren't supposed to look that old-older than the guards, older than the doctors. Not older than the Colonel's, though. Tinga hated being small, especially since there were times when she felt so much older than she really was. Did eight year olds outside worry about training sessions and who'd get the shakes next? If they were human or not? Did nomalies even exist on the outside?  
  
"Do you think that the stories Ben tells are true?" Max maneuvered so that she sat between Tinga and Jondy, drawing their circle closer.  
  
Tinga rested against the comfort of her little sister's warm body. "I think there's a good place," she said finally. "I don't know if we get to go there, since we weren't born. I think it's for regular people--outside people."  
  
"Do you think the princes and princesses and castles are real?" Jondy leaned against Max, so that they sat in a huddle. "I remember a story about a lady in a tower, with long hair that a prince climbed up to rescue her. I think one of the nurses told it to me, when I was sick."  
  
"Princes don't climb up hair. Princes go to war in order to increase the size of their kingdoms, like Frederick the Great of Prussia. Sometimes they're normal men whose wives are queens, like Prince Albert," Tinga said. "And you know castles are real. The Colonel showed us plans for the old keeps, and how sieges worked last month." Without thinking, she ran a hand over her shorn head, wondering what it would be like to feel the weight of long hair there. "No prince could ever rescue us. They keep our hair too short."  
  
Max shuddered slightly between them. "Not the shakes," she said, knowing their question before they even asked it. "Manticore's like a castle, isn't it? The high place is the ramparts, the electric fence is the high wall…"  
  
"The training ground could be the bailey yard," Jondy offered. "And the basement…"  
  
"Where the monsters live." Tinga said flatly. In the history lessons, the monsters always lived in the forests. Manticore's demons were all kept in the basement though. The nomalies.  
  
"Princes might come." But Max's voice was doubtful. Tinga didn't like the fallen look on her little sister's face. It wasn't right, even if they were genetically-engineered. Even if they were soldiers.  
  
"My prince will be tall, with blond hair and blue eyes," Jondy said, a little smile on her face.  
  
Tinga laughed. "So your prince is Zack?" And to her surprise, Jondy actually turned red.  
  
"Not Zack," she said, wrinkling up her nose. "Zack's my brother. But he'll be like Zack. Someone strong and brave who takes care of me, so I don't have to be strong and brave."  
  
Max threw both her arms around Jondy again. "I'll take care of you. I'll fight anyone who hurts you," she vowed. And from the determined look in Max's dark eyes, Tinga knew that their baby sister would.  
  
"What about your prince, Maxie?"  
  
Her little sister shrugged. "I dunno if I want a prince. Who says all princes are good and brave? We can take care of ourselves." But Tinga noticed a faraway look in Max's eyes. The youngest girl's voice was soft when she spoke again. "If I do, he won't be a soldier. And he doesn't have to be strong or tall or handsome. He just has to like me for me." There was bitterness in her voice. "Chimera."  
  
Someone to love her, the way moms were supposed to love their babies, the way that some of the doctors talked about their husbands and wives when they thought that Tinga wasn't listening. Someone to love her like people on the outside loved.  
  
"Even if our princes never come, we'll still make it." With an arm around each of her little sisters, Tinga hugged them close, the way one of the watchers had done to her once, when she was small and hit her head on the edge of her crib. "No one ever said that princes have to have all the fun."  
  
Her sisters laughed, and for a moment, Tinga could pretend that they were normal girls, living on the outside--girls who didn't have to worry about tomorrow. Someday, they would bring down the evil castle. Someday, they might even see what was on the other side of the wall.  



End file.
